, ii. 158.

[258:A] MS. (Virginia) in State Paper office, (London,) cited in
Anderson's Hist. of Colonial Church, ii. 548-9.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

1663.

Report of Edmund Scarburgh, Surveyor-General, of his
Proceedings in establishing the Boundary Line between Virginia
and Maryland on the Eastern Shore--The Bear and the Cub--
Extracts from Records of Accomac.

A CONTROVERSY existed between Virginia and Lord Baltimore relative to
the boundary line on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The
dispute turned on the true site of Watkins' Point, which was admitted to
be the southern limit of Maryland on that shore. The Virginia assembly,
in 1663, declared the true site of Watkins' Point to be on the north
side of Wicocomoco River, at its mouth, and ordered publication thereof
to be made by Colonel Edmund Scarburgh, his majesty's surveyor-general,
commanding, in his majesty's name, all the inhabitants south of that
Point, "to render obedience to his majesty's government of Virginia." A
conference with Lord Baltimore's commissioners was proposed in case he
should be dissatisfied, and Colonel Scarburgh, Mr. John Catlett, and Mr.
Richard Lawrence were appointed commissioners on the part of Virginia.
Lawrence will reappear in Bacon's Rebellion. The surveyor-general was
further directed "to improve his best abilities in all other his
majesty's concerns of land relating to Virginia, especially that to the
northward of forty degrees of latitude, being the utmost bounds of the
said Lord Baltimore's grant, and to give an account of his proceedings
therein to the right honorable governor and council of Virginia."[259:A]

Colonel Scarburgh's report of his proceedings on this occasion is
preserved.[259:B] He set out with "some of the commission, and about
forty horsemen," an escort which he deemed necessary "to repel the
contempt" which, as he was informed, "some Quakers and a fool in office
has threatened to obtrude." The party reached Anamessecks on Sunday
night, the eleventh of October. On the next day, at the house of an
officer of the Lord Baltimore, the surveyor-general began to publish the
assembly's commands by repeatedly reading the act to the officer, who
labored under the disadvantage of being unable to read. He declared that
he would not be false to the trust put in him by the Lord-Lieutenant of
Maryland. To this Colonel Scarburgh replied, "that there could be no
trust where there was no intr